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A Million Dollars?

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Ian Wallis:
I don't know about you but I really think the amount of money given away on reality/game shows has gotten way out of hand.  When \"Who Wants to be a Millionaire\" first came on, a million dollars seemed like a special, almost unreachable goal.

Since then, shows like \"Greed\", \"Twenty One\", \"Survivor\", \"Amazing Race\", \"Joe Millionaire\", \"For Love or Money\", and even \"Fear Factor's\" season premiere have also given away that sum.  A million dollars is given away so often now it doesn't seem special anymore.  I think that's one of the reasons Pepsi sponsored that \"Play for a Billion\" show a couple of weeks ago - to try to come up with a new figure just to grab attention.  Where does it end?   It almost seems like they're devaluing the achievement of winning that figure by giving it away so often.  It's gotten out of hand.

Anyone else agree, or disagree?

reason1024:
Yup, I pretty much agree.

I don't think that Greed devalued the million; it offered more money TOTAL, but it was hard as heck to get it.  Then, even if you DID, you probably split it with your team.  It was infrequent, and by no means assured.

I can't argue against Twenty One devaluing huge prizes, because it DID just chuck money out the window at passing contestants.

But I think that the biggest reason we feel the million isn't as special is because of all the reality games.  $1 Million has become the standard prize, and someone is guaranteed to win that.  They haven't done a particularly good job of \"selling\" the million as a big sum of money, either.  On the dating shows, it's usually just a check rather than a pile o' cash.

$1,000,000 is the $10,000 of the 2000's.

Matt Ottinger:

--- Quote ---$1,000,000 is the $10,000 of the 2000's.
--- End quote ---
What a great way to put it!  The truth is that Millionaire and Survivor raised the bar, and now any newcomer to prime time pretty much assumes they have to match it.  Of course, it's becoming more and more common that the million dollar payouts are in the form of annuities.  

A big reason that the girl from \"For Love or Money\" turned down the million to appear on the sequel was that she was only really looking at $25K a year for 40 years.  I know that's a pretty big \"only\", but spread out like that (not to mention the tax bite), what sounds like a life-changing amount of money really isn't.

tommycharles:
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Sep 24 2003, 09:31 AM\'] A big reason that the girl from "For Love or Money" turned down the million to appear on the sequel was that she was only really looking at $25K a year for 40 years.  I know that's a pretty big "only", but spread out like that (not to mention the tax bite), what sounds like a life-changing amount of money really isn't. [/quote]
 Ok, so it's not a life changing amount of money, but for a lot of people (I'm not saying her, specifically), and extra $25k/year would double their income for the next 40 years.

ObGameshow: did the shows of the fifties (the honest ones) ever give annuities?

aaron sica:
[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Sep 24 2003, 07:50 AM\']
Since then, shows like "Greed", "Twenty One", "Survivor", "Amazing Race", "Joe Millionaire", "For Love or Money", and even "Fear Factor's" season premiere have also given away that sum.  A million dollars is given away so often now it doesn't seem special anymore.  I think that's one of the reasons Pepsi sponsored that "Play for a Billion" show a couple of weeks ago - to try to come up with a new figure just to grab attention.  Where does it end?   It almost seems like they're devaluing the achievement of winning that figure by giving it away so often.  It's gotten out of hand.

Anyone else agree, or disagree? [/quote]
 I agree with you...It seems as if a million dollars is definitely devalued...\"Fear Factor\" is definitely proof of that, giving a million away on the season opener, with no long game (dragged out in weeks like Survivor, or Amazing race)....

Funny how money works on game shows, though.......I remember thinking how much of a big deal $100,000 was in 1985 when the Pyramid gave it away during the tournaments, yet it's always a shot every night on WoF to land on the $100,000 envelope and win...

On the flip side, the top prize on MG was $5,000 in 1973, and when revived in 1998, was also $5,000....

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